On 14/06/18 15:29, Stevens wrote:
I mean, what is its main claim to fame? The answer to that has changed over the years but I wonder what it is now. Maybe someone here can make a compelling case for the use of opensuse instead of any other linux distro. If so, I would like to see it. What use case would cause opensuse to be selected? I suppose in order to answer that, one must be fluent in the various linux dialects.
I am relatively fluent in various Linux dialects, so I guess I could have a try. I have just returned to using *SUSE after some years away. I started with Lasermoon Linux-FT in 1996, experimented with Red Hat Linux on servers in 1997-1998, first switched to it as my main desktop briefly with Caldera OpenLinux in 1999, and for longer with SUSE Linux Professional in about 2002. I switched to Ubuntu with 4.10 in 2004 and still use it on my home laptop, for now. I also regularly evaluate other distros, including Fedora, Mint, Elementary, Bodhi, Arch, Debian, Devuan, TrueOS, and others. Back in the 1990s it was quite common for distros to have some kind of global configuration tool. RHL had LinuxConf, Caldera had LISA; in the Debian world, Libranet had Adminmenu. And of course SUSE had YAST. Now, SUSE is the only distro that has one. YAST has been maintained and updated and remains an invaluable tool. Ubuntu used to be a simple, clean, fairly lightweight distro. It is not lightweight any more, nor is it quite as simple. It also had a decent clean GNOME 2 desktop, which after MS' legal threats, it replaced with Unity, which quickly became my personal favourite Linux desktop. Now, it's switching to GNOME 3, which I don't personally like at all. So now, all the leading distros -- Ubuntu, Fedora, CentOS/RHEL, Debian -- run GNOME 3 by default. OpenSUSE offers KDE by default, although all the major desktop offerings are there if you wish. I personally don't like KDE either but at least it's something different from the RH/Ubuntu/Mint side of the fence, which all offer KDE as a sort of afterthought. The only other distros to lead with KDE are tiny niche players, such as the fragments of Mandriva: OpenMandriva, Mageia, Rosa Linux, and PC LinuxOS. (I personally, not as an employee, would love to see SUSE hire the people behind the surviving Mandriva spinoffs, bring it in-house as the official successor, and stop defaulting to GNOME on the enterprise flavour. GNOME is a RH-led project, doesn't run well in VMs, is not at all Windows-like, and offers no room for differentiation. But I can't see it happening, sadly.) Mint is growing in popularity, because unlike Fedora/Debian/Ubuntu, it defaults to simple, Windows-like desktops. That is a potential win for openSUSE + KDE, but it needs to be a simpler, no-questions-asked, click-here-for-all-the-proprietary-bits installer. Mint's unique selling point is a simple, minimal-number-of-clicks-to-a-complete-working-Windows-lookalike desktop. Fedora has no stable versions. Every version is a short-term release. Leap wins there. Debian "Sid" and Fedora "Rawhide" are rolling releases and largely untested. Arch and Gentoo are for skilled expert users only. Tumbleweed wins over all of them there. But the "marketing" messages are confused, IMHO. So, the strengths of openSUSE: * YAST -- the only Linux with a proper system-wide admin tool. * A choice of a stable LTS flavour or a tested rolling-release that doesn't require mad geek skills. * KDE -- the biggest name which leads with KDE. (But IMHO it's overcomplex and Cinnamon is a better choice for an easy-to-use, attractive-looking, Windows-like desktop.) All just in my personal opinion. Here, for the record, is what I wrote about the choices a decade ago, in possibly my most-discussed-ever article. Half the distros I mentioned then are dead, but for the remainder, my comments still more or less stand. <https://www.theinquirer.net/inquirer/news/1003013/inquirer-guide-free-operating-systems> -- Liam Proven - Technical Writer, SUSE Linux s.r.o. Corso II, Křižíkova 148/34, 186-00 Praha 8 - Karlín, Czechia Email: lproven@suse.com - Office telephone: +420 284 241 084 -- To unsubscribe, e-mail: opensuse+unsubscribe@opensuse.org To contact the owner, e-mail: opensuse+owner@opensuse.org